"The
ABC Years" of
David Crosby and
Graham Nash were the years 1975 and 1976, when the two, best known for their association with
Stephen Stills and, sometimes,
Neil Young, were performing as a duo and had left
Atlantic Records, which issued the recordings they made with those partners, for
ABC, a label later subsumed within
MCA, the imprint under which this compilation has been issued.
Crosby & Nash released three albums with
ABC: 1975's gold-selling, Top Ten
Wind on the Water, featuring the chart entry
"Carry Me"; 1976's gold-selling
Whistling Down the Wire, featuring the chart entry
"Out of the Darkness"; and 1977's
Live. By the time that last, contractually obligated, album came out, they had rejoined
Stills to reform
Crosby, Stills & Nash. But this brief, productive period was arguably their most impressive, alone or in tandem, outside the more popular trio/quartet. Fronting a highly regarded and high-priced Los Angeles session band sometimes called
the Section (drummer
Russ Kunkel, bassist
Leland Sklar, guitarist
Danny Kortchmar, et al.) and best known for backing
James Taylor,
Crosby turned out a series of his characteristic
jazz-tinged tunes with self-reflective lyrics, while
Nash performed
pop songs on personal and political topics. Annotator
Steve Silberman recalls that such
Nash efforts as
"Take the Money and Run" and
"Mutiny" directed anger at the absent
Stills and
Young, though the lyrics are too vague and metaphorical for the layman to parse, especially a quarter-century later. But
"Wind on the Water" remains a feeling statement on the slaughter of whales. Compiler
Mike Ragogna has made a reasonable reduction of the two studio albums, adding four familiar tunes from the live disc, for this 78-minute collection. 1978's
The Best of Crosby/Nash, also including
Atlantic material, was more complete, but this album lives up to its title. ~ William Ruhlmann
![Desire [Remastered]](http://prodimage.images-bn.com/pimages/0827969239322_p0_v2_s90x140.jpg "Desire [Remastered]")
